Find your ancestors in Wiltshire Baptisms

There are over 600,000 baptism records from Wiltshire in south west England. Parish records generally begin in 1538, and until the introduction of civil registration in 1837, were the most reliable documented source of records of births, marriages and deaths. Whilst the registers are for Church of England parishes, most other denominations also used the Anglican parishes for registration purposes, with the exception of Quaker and Jewish records.

Wiltshire is a largely agricultural, historic county in the south west of England. A landlocked county, it is bordered by the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Salisbury Plain is known for being the location of both the Stonehenge and Avebury Neolithic stone circles. The county is named after the former county town of Wilton, which itself is named after the River Wyle.

Those born and bred in Wiltshire are sometimes called Moonrakers. The story goes that a group of 16th century smugglers, trying to evade the Excise men, hid their contraband in the village pond. When the Excise men turned up they raked the surface of the pond, causing conveniently camouflaging ripples, and explained that they were trying to fish out the big cheese that could clearly be seen floating in the pond, the Moon of course. The Excise men, thinking them mad or daft, let them go and the contraband was saved. The location of the village pond has been claimed by a number of places but most often with The Crammer, in Devizes.

Transcriptions are the copyright of Wiltshire Family History Society.

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